Imperial Pacific International Director How Yo Chi speaks to members of the Commonwealth Casino Commission during a meeting on Oct. 26, 2023.
IMPERIAL Pacific International Director How Yo Chi said he and legal counsel Michael Chen will appear at 10 a.m. today, Feb. 28, 2024, before the Commonwealth Casino Commission, which will conduct a revocation hearing on IPI’s exclusive casino license.
IPI on Monday filed an emergency motion for a temporary restraining order to prevent the commission from conducting the hearing, but the federal court denied the motion on Tuesday.
The hearing will be conducted in the commission’s conference room at Springs Plaza on Middle Road in Gualo Rai.
The commission’s vice chair, Ralph S. Demapan, will be the presiding officer with Commissioners Mario Taitano, Martin Mendiola and Ramon M. Dela Cruz as the other members of the tribunal.
The commission’s chair, Edward C. Deleon Guerrero, will serve as an advocate for the commission’s executive director, Andrew Yeom, who filed enforcement actions against IPI for its failure to pay its obligations to the CNMI government and the commission.
In an interview on Tuesday, Chi said, “We’ve made proposals, but we haven’t heard anything back. But now that the revocation hearing is going to proceed, I’m not sure if we’ll hear anything back,” referring to the settlement negotiations with the commission.
Chi said he believes the commission “wants to settle as much as we do, but we don’t know what the [CNMI] government is thinking since we haven’t heard anything back.”
He added that the commission “is aware of the proposals that we made.” However, “the governor’s counsel just said that he’s waiting for the governor to come back on Thursday and then he can provide an update.”
Asked if IPI will present its proposed settlement during the revocation hearing today, Wednesday, Chi said: “We are still in discussion internally on the next step going forward.”
In a separate interview, the commission’s executive director, Andrew Yeom, said IPI has until 9:59 a.m. to comply with the enforcement actions that he filed. Otherwise, “the revocation hearing will proceed at 10 a.m.,” he added.
The commission’s tribunal will hear enforcement actions 2020-002 and 2020-003 pertaining to IPI’s non-payment of the annual exclusive casino license and regulatory fees. Since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, the commission said IPI has failed to pay its obligations that have now amounted to over $62 million in annual exclusive casino license fee due to the CNMI government, and over $17.62 million in regulatory fee due to the commission, plus fines and penalties, for a total of $79.63 million.
On Friday, Feb. 23, IPI refiled in federal court its two lawsuits against Gov. Arnold I. Palacios and the casino commission, alleging breach of the casino license agreement.
Last month, amid ongoing settlement negotiations with CCC, IPI asked the federal court to dismiss the lawsuits without prejudice. The court granted the request.
Variety learned that the settlement negotiations had stalled, and that the main point of disagreement was the settlement amount.
